Weekly Market 4.0: How Producers Sell Their Products on the Internet

Direct marketers of agricultural products bypass the price pressure of the large retailers. In order to gain new customers, some are now also using the Internet. Platforms such as pielers.de and marktschwaermer.de bundle the offers.

The over 300 Angus cattle and water buffalo on the "yard by the sea" in the Wesermarsch only get to eat grass – in summer in the pasture, in winter in dried form. Lovers like the special meat taste. Angus roast or buffalo minced meat from Norderschwei are not offered in any supermarket, the operators Bianca and Michael Theerkorn rely on direct sales. It is sold in the farm shop, at weekly markets in the region, to the catering trade – and over the Internet. "We ship nationwide, even to Austria," says Michael Theerkorn.
Just like the "Hof am Meer", there are more and more direct marketers. According to the rural areas network, online marketing is becoming increasingly important for businesses. Biokisten are popular in the big cities, which are ordered on the Internet and delivered by the producers to their homes. The disadvantage: The customer has only a limited influence on the content.
Online weekly market On the Internet platform "Pielers", customers can click on any desired product – a kind of weekly market 4.0. "Piel" means "direct" in Low German. Pielers was founded a year ago by the economist Julia Köhn from Geestland. Around 50 producers around Bremerhaven now offer their products, from farmer's black bread to apple juice and crabs. The customer can shop with several providers at the click of a mouse on a digital marketplace. "But he only gets one bill," says Köhn.
The concept envisages that consumers from the region have the opportunity to order the whole assortment; If you live further away, you will only be able to deliver something durable. "The cucumber is a hyper-regional product, it makes no sense to send it to Munich," emphasizes Julia Köhn. Next year, she wants to get producers from all over Germany on their platform and thus expand the offer. Köhn takes an agency fee and ensures that the logistics work. The customers appreciated the quality of the products and the time savings.
Additional distribution channels Founder Köhn comes from the management consultancy. Professionally, she and her husband were very involved, so there was little opportunity to buy fresh and quality local food. So she came up with the idea to launch the internet platform pielers.de. Most producers who spoke to Köhn already had their own internet shop. You see Pielers as an additional distribution channel, like the "Hof am Meer".
For other producers Köhn pioneered, as with the older peasant woman who wanted to give her a box of asparagus "for the Internet" in the beginning. "She does not know about digitization, but through us can participate," says Köhn. In the meantime, the farmer sends her smartphone photos of her wares so that they can be published on Pielers.
But direct marketers are not always as open-minded as the farmer's wife. The association of North German direct marketers counts around 100 member companies. Most of them shied away from the extra work due to the internet business, says branch manager Elke Sandvoß. "Only a few have their own online shop."
Enthusiasm is also the interest in the platform "Marktschwärmer", says Sandvoß. The idea comes from France: the customer orders and pays the goods online at the producer. The consumer brings the food once a week in one place – called "rapture" -ab; All producers travel to the edition. "That way, customers can find out more about the products than what's on the net," says Sandvoß. Nationwide, there are only a few well-functioning market swarms, in the spring of 2018, a new in Hanover-Ahlem.
Michael and Bianca Theerkorn could not imagine distribution without the Internet. After all, the profit margin is greater than when selling on the market – even if the construction of the online shop has cost a five-figure sum. "But you need a long breath to succeed," says Michael Theerkorn. "Customers have to first find one on the Internet." But there are enough consumers looking for special products online. "If we win a customer, then we keep it too."
(Janet Binder, dpa) /